Walk with me. It is still a warm day, but the trees are tinged with yellow.

The path meanders along a small channel, a tributary to the Willamette river.

Occasionally it veers off into the woods,

where trees chose to air out their roots,

or, better still, hug themselves.

The water is quiet, and extremely low.

Eventually I reach what is supposed to be a lake, but now only mud flats after this dry summer. I am thinking about the Jewish New Year that starts for us tomorrow. About the joys that the last year brought, the challenges, the losses, all making my personal life rich and complicated at once. Nothing but gratitude for that. Add to that sorrow for a world at the brink, with wars, natural catastrophes, potential dangers from technologies, anti-science policies, racist policing and vigilante violence all vying for first place in the destruction game.

I spook an osprey, it’s flying away, catching my eye, before I turn to the view up North.

Mount St. Helens is in glorious view, with some pelicans parked in front of it, echoing the white of the snow cap. Hard to square this peaceful view with the violent eruption of this volcano in 1980.  57 people were killed and 200 homes, 47 bridges, 15 miles (24 km) of railways, and 185 miles (298 km) of highway were destroyed. A massive debris avalanche, triggered by a magnitude 5.1 earthquake, caused a lateral eruption. I did not live in Portland then, but know people who to this day tell stories of the ashes covering their gardens, 57 miles to the South.

I can’t help but think about how we know there is danger around, but can’t predict when it becomes lethal. How we remember situations that were unspeakably destructive (particularly if there are still eyewitnesses around to tell the story) and yet we blindly ignore the signs that they are likely on repeat. In fact, through our willful ignorance or indifference make them more likely to occur again.

I am, of course, thinking about the fall of the fire wall against fascism, an event that happened in a German state election 5 days ago, with the help of over half a million people voting for a a party that is extremely right wing, infused with Nazi ideology and personell connections to actual neo-Nazi organizations. An election victory happily praised by the US President, the Vice President and Elon Musk, who has been shaping and guiding the Alternative for Germany (AfD) for several years now. It is a party that preaches hate, pursues the removal of long fought-for rights of many different populations, is willing to undermine the constitution, and showered citizens with promises that are all but impossible to keep. It achieved 44% of the vote and will be able to govern if only three more people jump ship in the five remaining other parties, and join the extremists.

Since around 2010 they built a movement embracing the grievances and siege mentality of East Germans (and now those in the West as well) who felt betrayed by the government, worried about the economy, fearful of crime, at a loss with the speed that technology unfolded, likely to threaten an already precarious status quo. Add to that a sense of betrayal that they believed to be treated as second class citizens by their Western counterparts, who swooped in and took what wasn’t nailed down after the fall of the actual wall.

Never mind the facts: crime rates in Saxony-Anhalt went down by 46% across the last ten years. Unemployment decreased by over 7%. Net income rose by 137%. Life expectancy rose by 5 years, overall. The percentage of non-German in the state is around 7%. Also the facts, for balanced reporting: rents have increased, education is getting worse, mass transportation, particularly the railway, is in a sad state and infrastructure is crumbling. The conservative national government is threatening to reduce many of the welfare state offerings everyone was used to, wants to increase the retirement age and is spending massive amounts on re-armament instead, in view of the belligerent threats of an Eastern neighbor.

As always, when fears grow, and insecurity festers, people who offer simple solutions for complex problems seem to score. They do so particularly if anger and resentment against a current government and an ever widening gap between the rich and everyone else, is not met with open ears, willingness to listen, or, most importantly, alternative proposals that have more realistic ways of implementation and tackle the rich rather than squeezing out more from the middle- and working class. There is a lot of rage around, and it has been ignored.

The AfD swooped in with promises, including visions of decreased rent and increased wages, and neighborhood emptied of “faces that don’t belong.” The party has two wings, an economic one and an ideologically extremist one. The first one takes care of the rich Germans, the other takes care of a German Reich. (The German version, by social critic and author Francesco Garita) is a clever wordplay: Der eine Flügel kümmert sich um reiche Deutsche, der andere um das Deutsche Reich.) Their economic policies align with oligarchs (see their support from Musk or, it is reported, Putin) – they want to increase free market competition, weaken the welfare state and deregulate big business. They discuss a departure from the EU, a return to a national currency, thus endangering the European project as a whole.

Their political wing provides convenient enemies to create in-group/outgroup cohesion and division, respectively, stoking hatred and existing prejudices in the population. Refugees, migrants, queer people, the poor, even women, all serve as scape goats and reminders that the fear of status loss is justified. The party stands for a revival of the hierarchies of the past, particularly for men. Men with German blood – as they publicly proclaim. They promise nationalism instead of justice, revenge instead of integration, authoritarian shortcuts instead of democracy. Importantly, they revive racist concepts of the past, allowing many people to voice them freely, or through permanent dogwhistles, be it agains Jews or Muslims, or Blacks. (It has only been a few years since a synagogue was attacked and two people killed in Halle, the second largest city in Saxony Anhalt. Even after this hate crime the local administration has been complaining about the cost for protecting the synagogue. They will be left on their own under the new regime.)

One of the main AfD promises are acts of “Remigration” – throwing people out of the country regardless of their immigration status. Something in other contexts more familiarly known as ethnic cleansing. Not mentioned: the annual cost of migration is around 50 million Euros. Migrants contribute about 706 million Euros to the economy – 14 times the cost and about 1/6 of the total gross domestic product. The current Chancellor, Merz, the biggest loser of these state elections, now accuses the AfD of unconstitutional moves. I will not get into the details of how much his party has bend to the populist right and normalized their programs, debating them over and over in “civilized settings”, making them socially acceptable, moving the Overton window to the right – or my head will explode.

***

On my walks, I saw egrets lining up, catching some warmth in the sun.

They reminded me of school children, standing in line, waiting to be called up in gym class or some such. Kids, then, shall be an example for a typical AfD program to bring us back to a brown past. (And in case you think associations to Nazis are far fetched – a legal opinion by the Society for Civil Liberties (Gesellschaft Für Freiheitsrechte) sees good chances of a successful AfD ban procedure before the Federal Constitutional Court. The report comes to the “clear conclusion that the AfD is unconstitutional, “showing parallels to national socialistic, racist ideology and programs. (The Society for Civil Liberties is a non-profit association founded in 2015 and based in Berlin. It aims to achieve the preservation and expansion of fundamental and human rights through strategic litigation. The GFF was founded as an association of lawyers and Internet politicians and cooperates with other non-governmental organizations in its lawsuits.)

Kids:

• The AfD in Saxony Anhalt wants to do away with the general obligation to attend public or accredited private school and allow anyone to homeschool without any supervisory control.
• Children of immigrants and refugees are to be separated from “German” children into different schools where they are to be “prepared for repatriation.” They want this even for kids who were born in Germany and/or have lived in the country for many years.
• Kids living with disabilities are no longer to be mainstreamed. They are to be educated in special schools, isolated from the public schools. The quality of that education is of course likely to be different, and smart kids, perhaps wheelchair bound, will not have a chance to unfold their intellectual potential. (This is, by the way, illegal according to United Nation conventions for people with disabilities….)

AfD: we protect your (blond) children (with Hitler Gruss, if necessary, just look at the arms!)

Mt. Adams visible, still on my list of places I have to visit.

Nature tries to divert my visions of “brown” (even though the AfD chose light blue as their trademark color, claiming it symbolizes a new beginning…). Green, green, green nature shouts – and the occasional egret decides to move on, suggesting I’d do the same.

Tiny little asters everywhere. I try to absorb the beauty of it all, calming my nerves so rattled by what’s happening in the world.

Let us not be discouraged, withdraw, shut up – or they have won.

There is still much left for us to cherish on a daily basis, here, now, filling us with strength and determination.

L’Shanah Tovah – Happy New Year 5787

(My first act in the new year shall be to remind you all to deliver your ballots to a collection box, vote early. Just vote and drop it in the box! It would be negligent to entrust them to the post office!!!!)

Music today is an album by Hourloupe, Last Lost Words. I still have a few words left…..